Brag about this!

While it’s nice to delude ourselves that we live in the “world’s most liveable city”, Melbourne’s ranking fell last year in Mercer’s annual Quality of Living Survey to 16th place.

The Mercer ranking is one of a number of international surveys that are designed to help multi-national companies compensate employees they send to undesirable locations.

We Melburnians like to think that the Economist Intelligence Unit’s rankings is where global measurement of quality of life starts and finishes. That’s because we keep winning it.

Have you ever listened to a Robert Doyle speech which doesn’t have at least one reference to the world’s most liveable city?

Mercer ranks Vienna on top. In fact, Vienna, Auckland and Vancouver generally score well in all the rankings.

As mentioned, Melbourne comes in at 16 with Mercer – down one place from last year’s 15th place. When it comes to infrastructure, Melbourne ranks 34th, behind Sydney (eighth) and Perth (32nd) – which probably rings true with those of us who drive or commute.

On an alternative Numbeo measure, Melbourne is ranked 10th for quality of life, behind Canberra (best in the world!) and Adelaide (sixth). Sydney is 39th on this list.

Making news in Melbourne last month was that real estate company Savills had ranked us the best in Australia for “tech” (14th place globally). Savills ranked us eighth on its measure of “buzz and wellness”.

There’s no doubt that, compared with many other places in the world, Melbourne is a great place to live. But, if we were the best city in the world, wouldn’t you think we’d have less need to brag about it?